it’s that time again! thinking about what i want to do for the next release. based on the most recent feedback from players and what i feel like doing, here’s a rough idea of what i think i’ll work into the next release. it’ll probably be called ‘the back lantern’ and will introduce a new artifact, called the black lantern, which is a lantern that is black, which is uncharacteristic of most lanterns i’m told. new mechanic: portals, which you can manipulate with said black lantern. i’ve got a prototype working, and its super cool, it adds a whole new...

beem 1.0.2 is nearing completion, and i’ve tentatively titled the release strange descent. i’m really looking forward to my first major update! a version jump from 1.0.1 to 1.0.2 doesn’t really make the update sound as large as it is, but i’ve been hard at work adding some awesome new gameplay dynamics and a ton of new content. so whats going to be in it? fixes! i fixed drawing issues with the 3gs, which i would have run into on android devices with varying screen dimensions anyway, so i really hit 3,000+ birds with one stone on that one. several...

so my first attempt at a real technical post will be about why i chose the technology i did for my game beem. my motivation is to try to contribute back to these projects in some fashion, as they made my game possible to begin with, even if it’s just a rah rah from an elated consuming developer. i’ll start with that last statement, i have to give big thanks to the monotouch (aka xamarin) and monogame projects, because the only reason i ported my game from flash to xna was because these projects existed in the first place. from...

the latest version of beem is coming soon, and there are some major improvements i’m really looking forward to releasing. no release date yet, but its coming along nicely so far. after this release, i will spend some more time actively marketing the game, as i think it will be a more hefty offering. since reviews are really only something i can get once, i’d prefer it be after a few important changes. it is tentatively titled the gem descent. planned stuff: fix 3gs drawing issues (done – mostly) ambient dust particle effects (for a more interesting feel – done...

beem is available is now available on the appstore! seeing my game finally out there gives me huge feeling of accomplishment. there is a free version you can try out, so no excuses, go check it out! i royally flubbed the release. a month ago, i had submitted the very first barely not-so-stable version 1.0.0 (we’ll call this v crap) of the game to the appstore to figure the process out with some time to spare. no big deal thinks i, that version will never see the light of day. well… as it turns out you have to set a...

i got to try my hand at video editing in making a gameplay trailer for my game beem. like sound editing, it’s actually not so bad, until you get to the end. there are officially 1 million different settings and encodings you can export your movie with. since i don’t understand any of them, i have to start guessing, and it turns out its like a super slow version of russian roulette, because it takes 30 minutes to encode 1 minute and 30 seconds of movie, and half of my guesses end up being a sound track on top of...

i finally got a chance to redo the website for my business site, light engine. i made it look all beemy, it looks a lot better than it did a few days ago. i am prepping screenshots, videos, and written content to try to get the word out there once beem is available on the app store. prepping screenshots is remarkably un-fun. i’d rather work on the game, but that’s sort of pointless if no one knows about it, so woooohooo back to screenshots.

i am going to try the blogging thing out again. i do enough interesting technical stuff these days that someone else might find it interesting. additionally, I need a place for longer blurbs about my projects that twitter and facebook aren’t really meant for wow, getting that image into my post was ‘simple’ i dare say. i’ll save it for another day, but the drupal equivalent of adding content to my posts was not ‘simple’. WordPress 1 Drupal 0.